


Snow

by peaceloveandjocularity, stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24526783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peaceloveandjocularity/pseuds/peaceloveandjocularity, https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Klinger sends away to Boston for snow.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 5
Kudos: 21





	Snow

“What is this?” He turned the tiny cylinder in his hands. The shape reminded him of a fancy plume pen, wider at the top and tapering down to a point; tiny crystal beads and pale wire decorated the glass.

“The jar is called a tear catcher, but  _ that’s _ not the gift. It’s what’s inside.”

Winchester thought many things in that moment: that there could be no more appropriate gift for Korea than something fashioned to collect tears, that Klinger had made the erroneous assumption that because he had wealth he valued antiques, and that the tiny jar really was pretty in a terribly fragile way.

He said none of this. “And what, pray tell, is inside?”

“Snow. Or it was. If you refreeze it here, I guess it will be ice, though.”

“And you are giving me this ‘unfrozen’ ice because?” His eyes were cold.

“It’s from Boston.”

“What? How?”

“Major, I’m the company clerk. My job is to write letters and get things.”

This was true enough. “But I never asked...”

“You didn’t have to,” said the clerk. “Everyone here knows you’re unhappy.” He stopped short of saying  _ lonely _ . “I thought this might help.”

Then Klinger was gone, out the tent door. BJ and Pierce looked at Charles. They thought about starting in on him, but the man’s face was so open and helpless that it wouldn’t have been fair. Hawkeye had only seen him that way once before, caught up in a piece of music he loved, having forgotten where he was. He held up the tiny cylinder and looked at the water within with a wondering delight.

“Here, Charles. Let me clasp it for you.” BJ stood and fastened the catcher around his neck.

“Thank you.”

Hawkeye pretended to read. “Pretty nice of Klinger, huh, Charles?”

“Unimaginably so.” Even his voice was shaken. “How did he... Why would he?”

“We all look after one another here,” BJ answered. “Believe me, if he thought it’d make you feel better, Klinger would mail you to Boston. Well, if he could get Potter to sign off on the postage, that is. He’s tried to get Peg for me, but she doesn’t think traveling by wooden crate is very dignified.”

Charles stood, eyes unseeing.

“Where are you going, Chaz?”

“To... to take a walk. It’s very cold.” He rolled the cylinder between his fingers. “Maybe this will start to freeze.”

After he had gone, BJ turned to his best friend. “Wow. I think that’s the first time we’ve seen a dent in his armor.”

“Forget dent - that was a  _ crack _ . Did you see that soft little smile? Underneath all that breeding, there’s a real live heart!”

“And Klinger found it with a few drops of H2O,” BJ mused. “Funny. The man shows nothing when mutilated young bodies are paraded in front of him, but one tiny gift...”

“You know how it is in OR,” Pierce protested. “You  _ can’t _ feel. He’s just protecting himself.”

“Yeah, but where you and I have a shield, Winchester has a  _ moat _ . Archers with flaming arrows. Being that guarded, I thought when he did thaw we’d have a section 8 on our hands.”

“Doesn’t look like it.” He raised his glass. “To Klinger, finder of chinks in armor and black market medical equipment.”

BJ still looked puzzled. “Hawk?”

“Yeah?”

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“How come Klinger sent to Boston for snow?”

“You said it yourself. We look after each other. We have to. Hell, Klinger helped me get ribs from Chicago once.”

BJ knew the story, one of Hawkeye and Trapper John’s famous exploits.

“He got me a magazine from Maine once, too,” Hawk continued. “Traded for it because I was feeling down.”

“This is different,” insisted BJ.

“How? What are you saying?”

“Hawk, we’ve been sitting here impressed to find out Winchester has a heart, right?”

“Well, he’s a thoracic surgeon. Maybe he removed it for practice.”

The joke didn’t carry. “Hawk!”

“Fine, yes.”

“But what if this isn’t about  _ his _ heart?” BJ persisted, verbally pushing him to see what he was now certain he had witnessed. “Who do we know that wears his heart on his sleeve?”

Hawkeye was beginning to catch up and on. “No no no no no  _ no _ . You’ve been here too long and you’re bored and you’re making things up out of whole cloth.”

“Speaking of cloth, don’t you think Klinger was a little dressed up when he came in?”

Hawkeye rolled his eyes at the sloppy transition. “Klinger is  _ always _ a little dressed up. It’s how he plans to get out, remember?”

“Floor length before five? C’mon.”

There was that. “Fine,” Hawkeye reluctantly conceded. “What do you want to do?”

“Ask him.”

“And if you’re right?”

“Help him.”

Two syllables. Mr. California Sunshine made it all sound so simple. Hawkeye buried his head in his hands. “Oh, sure. It’s not enough we have to fix up broken bodies and survive rats and lice and dysentery, oh no. We should also take on the role of cupid. Why the hell not?”

BJ was pulling on his boots. “Mercury is a god. Surgeons think they’re gods. We’re made for this stuff. Besides, Klinger deserves a present.”

“Winchester is going to  _ hate  _ you calling him that. Can’t we just get him some cloth to make a new dress?”

BJ dragged him into the cold night.

***

When they found Corporal Maxwell Klinger, he was working on ironing, a signature pillbox in peacock blue resting on his dark hair.

“Hey guys! What are you doing here?”

Since BJ was the mastermind behind whatever this was, Hawk left him to answer. “We just wanted to visit,” Hunnicutt said. “That was an awfully nice thing you did for Major Winchester tonight.”

Klinger went still for a moment, but recovered before he could burn the dress he was working free of wrinkles. “Oh. Well, you know. He’s sad a lot of the time. I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but he’s not so bad underneath.”

Hawkeye couldn’t resist. “Or so you’d like to find out?”

BJ elbowed him.

Klinger sat the iron upright. He looked, Hunnicutt thought, scared half to death. 

“Breathe, Klinger,” Hawkeye said. “We aren’t here to give you grief.”

Whatever Klinger’s mind thought, his body had clearly read danger in this situation; his shoulders had gone back and he’d drawn himself inward as if to protect something at the center of his being. BJ shot Hawkeye a look; by unspoken agreement, the pair looked after a handful of 4077th personnel that seemed to need guardian angels. Had they done wrong by not putting Klinger on the list? Had he taken more for his costumes than just a few snide comments from Burns? 

“C’mon,” Hunnicutt coaxed, almost in the voice he used with his daughter over the phone when she wouldn’t eat her peas (not that she could answer back yet). “You can trust us, Klinger. You know that.”

Klinger looked away - maybe for an exit. “It’s… it’s not something I talk about, sirs. Not even with, uh, the guys I’ve ‘gone with.’ I like to do my own makeup and black and blue don’t look all that good with my skin tone.”

“You don’t think  _ we’d _ hit you!?” This came from Hawkeye. 

Klinger still hung back a bit, uneasy. “You never know, sir.”

Hunnicutt felt his heart ache as though  _ it _ had taken a punch. If Klinger was this worried about  _ them _ , how must he have felt about reaching out to Winchester? Then it hit him. Klinger  _ hadn’t _ reached out. He’d been kind because he couldn’t be otherwise. He’d seen pain in this regal, imposing creature he had somehow gone and fallen for and he’d tried to lessen it.  _ But you don’t think you can have him, could  _ **_ever_ ** _ have him. Ouch.  _

“Klinger, no one’s going to hit you while we’re around. Got it?” This was Hawk again and he meant it. He and BJ were the camp’s unofficial ringleaders; they’d been remiss in overlooking Klinger until now, but they could prevent any future problems with a few well-placed words. 

“O-okay.” Klinger remained cautious, adjusting to this new reality. 

“C’mon, Klinger. You know we looked after Radar. Why not you?”

He shrugged and they saw that the costumed Corporal had asked himself that very question on more than one occasion. “I didn’t think I rated, sirs.” 

_ Double ouch _ , Hunnicut thought and knew Hawk was thinking it, too. “You do,” he said firmly. Then added, “Sorry if we let you down, Klinger.”

“You didn’t. I’m used to taking care of myself. But if you do want to do something for me, can you keep the stuff about the Major to yourselves? I can take a joke fine most of the time… but not about that. Not about him.”

Hawkeye was on the actual edge of his seat. “This isn’t a crush, then? Not something a supply room rendezvous would fix?”

“I don’t think the Major would ‘rendezvous’ anywhere that didn’t have silk sheets and room service, sir, but no it’s not that kind of thing.” He frowned, looked away. “That might be better. Easier.”

“How’s that?” Hawk asked, but BJ was ahead of him. 

“It wouldn’t have to be  _ Winchester _ , then,” Hunnicutt explained. “It could be a stand in. A type. Although where you’d find another one, I couldn’t begin to guess. Unless you’re planning on vacationing at the Cape when you get home, Klinger.”

The Corporal rolled his eyes. “Right, like they’d let me in. Look, sirs, I know it’s a nonstarter. You don’t have to tell me the facts of life or tell me not to do something stupid. I already know. I wanted to do something nice for him and I did. End of story.”

“Alright, alright,” Hawkeye agreed, shooting BJ a look that said, “see? We should have just bought him a dress!” 

***

Satisfied that they could help Klinger to feel safer no matter what he wore (even if they could do little for his heart), the Swamp Rats endured the cold to return to the Swamp. Winchester, however, remained outside until after the palms of his mittens had grown a furze of frost. He thought of the cold and scent and atmosphere and colors of a Boston winter. He thought about goose down comforters and cashmere scarves, oil-treated leather loafers that cost more than a company clerk made in three months. He thought about home and touched the cold links of metal around his neck. 

Charles was a brilliant man. He understood that in order for Klinger to acquire the reminder of home worn ‘round his neck, he’d first had to memorize where he was from, then make contacts with someone willing to collect a bit of Boston snowfall, acquire the tear catcher casing and pay shipping.  _ All this for me _ . And he’d virtually never said a kind word to the man. Charles knew, though he struggled to understand, that there could only be one motivation for anyone to undertake so kindhearted and complicated a thing. 

The question rang in his mind, sounding preposterous, impossible:  _ You gave me a piece of home because you want to give  _ **_me_ ** _ a home?  _

He lifted the chain to turn the bit of glass in his hands. His exploring fingers discovered a maker’s mark he hadn’t noticed before: a cursive L in a double hoop. The town of manufacture was inscribed, too. When he read it, there under a light tacked to a pole at a MASH unit in South Korea, his heart cramped.  _ Oh, Klinger.  _ The clever little clerk had married their home towns in a single gift. And, against all odds, it was beautiful. 

***

Charles still wore his gift when he sought out the gentle soul who had given it to him, a man who loved to run his fingers over suede or tangle them in ribbons or lace. He found Klinger in his office, humming softly, seemingly oblivious to the cold, sorting files. As he crossed the room, he bumped against a wooden chair and sent it clattering; Klinger jumped up and moved behind his own chair, placing it between him and perceived danger. 

Charles smiled and righted the toppled furniture but Klinger stayed where he was. “Corporal, is there a reason you’re hiding back there?” 

“Your eyes are kind of wild, Major. Seems like the right place to be.” 

His face screwed up in puzzlement. “Klinger, are you under the impression that I intend you some form of  _ violence _ ?” 

Klinger tilted his head, a gesture both birdlike and uncertain. “Maybe?” He’d known that giving Winchester a gift was a chancy move at best; the man was wickedly intelligent and he’d known that he was taking a chance that Winchester would see through his kindness and find his exposed heart. Now Klinger had to hope that as a thoracic surgeon, Charles wouldn’t do anything to break it. 

“Why?” 

“People aren’t always all that great about who I am, sir.” 

Hands splayed to show that he meant no harm, Charles came closer. The tear catcher swung as he moved and Klinger’s eyes fastened on it. 

“Not all men hit, Max.” He knelt then to bring them closer to eye level. “And if I am correct in thinking that you held your heart out to me this afternoon, I think I can promise you that if you will stay by my side, no one will ever raise a hand to you again.” 

“Major?” 

“Come on out, Max.” It sounded like  _ Come home.  _

He did and startled him by kneeling in turn, skirts making a sighing sound on the wooden floor. Charles gathered him into his arms. Outside, the snow fell and fell and fell. 

End! 

  
  



End file.
